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The United Kingdom (sometimes shortened to the UK) is a country situated on a collection of islands known as the British Isles off the north-western coast of continental Europe, and surrounded by the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. The United Kingdom, often referred to simply as 'Britain', is a constitutional monarchy and is composed of four constituent parts: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
History
The United Kingdom was formed by several unions from the 12th century onward. Scotland and England had existed as separate political entities since the 9th century. Wales, under the control of English monarchs from the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. With the Act of Union 1707, the independent states of England and Scotland agreed to a political union as the Kingdom of Great Britain.
The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1169 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Independence for the now Republic of Ireland in 1922 brought the partition of the island of Ireland, with six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster remaining within the UK, which changed to the current name in 1929 in recognition.
The United Kingdom, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing Western ideas of property, liberty, capitalism and parliamentary democracy—to say nothing of its part in advancing world literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one quarter of the Earth's surface and encompassed a third of its population. The first half of the 20th century saw the UK's strength seriously depleted from the effects of World War I and World War II. The second half witnessed the dismantling of the Empire and the UK rebuilding itself into a new and prosperous nation.
The UK became a member of the European Union in 1973. At the subsequent turn of the century, the attitude of the government towards further integration was conservative, with the official opposition favouring a return of some powers and competencies to the UK. It had not chosen to adopt the Euro as domestic political opinion ran strongly against such a move, whilst the government itself had not seen fit to advance membership based on a judgement of the economic costs and benefits in doing so.